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November 17, 2009

Media Invited To International Earth Observation Briefing, Exhibit

by Sam Savage

The United States is hosting the sixth plenary meeting of the Group on Earth Observations, or GEO, this week at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, in Washington. Reporters are invited to a Nov. 17 press opportunity and a public exhibition highlighting recent GEO projects, including several involving NASA.

The press event will be held at 12:45 p.m. EST in the Reagan Building's Hemisphere A area. Photo identification is required. Sherburne B. Abbott, associate director for environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and other speakers will present details of GEO programs around the world.

Through GEO, 80 national governments, the European Commission and almost 60 global organizations coordinate Earth observation assets and strategies to track global trends in carbon levels, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water resources, ocean temperatures and other critical indicators of Earth's health and human well-being. The U.S. is a founding member of GEO through the U.S. Group on Earth Observations.

The exhibition in the Reagan Building's Atrium Hall will be open to the public on Nov. 17 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Nov. 18 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Highlighted projects featuring NASA contributions include near real-time fire detection, global agricultural monitoring, natural disaster monitoring and forecasting, and a famine early warning system.